The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Hey, How Hard does Hanners Hate Hellfire?
by Hannelore
I hate warlocks.
No really. Maybe I’m racist, or classist, or something. I just hate them.
Inevitably they’re stuffy and irritable, cranky and all around moody. They don’t have anything to offer a group except killing things faster, and even their pets are just kind of in the way. At least a rogue has practical abilities, and a hunter can do… stuff. I guess.
At least most hunters aren’t blatantly suicidal.
Alright alright, the caveat. Not ALL warlocks are useless suicidal emokids. The mistress of my own house is quite regal and intelligent and quite able to handle herself. But she’s moody too, so I guess there’s that.
But most of them are just terribad. We’re out there fighting fighting fighting, the rogue, mage, and warlock are arguing over the dps meter, and everything’s dead. Well before I sit down to drink, I’d like to pick up the stuff off the corpses. Y’know, it’s mine, I might as well. Then I sit down to drink, and the guy in a dress suddenly starts farting this green cloud that gets sucked back into him as mana. And his health is going down.
“heal plx”
I mean, seriously? You just did that to yourself! Bandage, you skuzzy booger. Make that half-dressed hoofed harlot heal you, she’s obviously bored enough to give herself spankies. I’d say you’re not giving her enough attention as it is. I don’t go and throw a bunch of heavy heals at the tank while he’s at full health, then turn to the mage and demand some water. She’s got other things to deal with. You! You should be using that rock candy stuff you make out of the souls of pigs and dwarves and things.
There! Problem solved. Lifetap, then healthstone! That way I can focus on keeping the rest of the group alive. The ones that are not over there crying about how no one understands their pain and slashing their wrists with ceremonial daggers or whatever.
“Nothing’s alright, nothing is fine!”
What? Look, if it’s that bad, I’m a priest. I know people that can y’know, fix you. You can be un-evilled! Enough with the sadface, and then crying when I don’t heal you through your own psychotic hellfire. Stealing agro from the tank AND incinerating your own flesh? You deserve to be cinders!
I wish my hair could be a warlock. Then it’d cut itself.
I guess I should ask you what class you specifically hate. And why. Or something. But I’m so depressed right now I can’t be bothered. /emosigh
September 29th, 2008
I feel your pain. Warlocks do tend to be the most insufferable players. Theories abound as to why, but they’re all unsatisfying somehow.
My strategy was generally to throw a HoT on them when they started lifetapping. But inevitably the tank would pick that moment to pull another group, and this healy tree would be cut down.
September 29th, 2008
I tried rolling a lock. I mean I’m a hunter and ‘it must be similar cos you have a pet’. But the weird thing is it didn’t feel right in the brain.
We have a lock in our guild who is seriously psycho. Their damage goes off the meter they die .. and then they rofl ^^
..and a ‘hunter can do stuff .. i guess’
Yup we can - like save your cute squishy ass by dropping a trap in front of you to stop those nasty mobs beating down on your face :o)
September 29th, 2008
I’ve found players of every class that make me hate them. Yes, I said “make me”, and I meant it. Terribad versions of every class and spec that make you throw up a little in your mouth whenever you see them, much less when you play alongside them. Bad Warlocks are only 1 example. I can think of oh so many more.
To be fair, I never much minded healing Warlocks using Lifetap, if it made the run go faster. Idiots that pull aggro by spamming “OMGSoC” deserve what they get, though.
September 29th, 2008
I’d say I have a special warlock-killing knife that I use when killing warlocks, but that would imply that I was able to kill one before getting chain-feared while the DoTs tick, tick, tick away…
September 29th, 2008
I can certainly agree about not healing our Warlock bretheren out of combat- indeed, I think that walking over and bandaging them usually gives the hint. I resist casting non-combat heals because my trinkets are macro’d to them, and in general it’s a bit of a waste to trigger them under such circumstances.
At the same time, I’m very zealous about getting a Renew on them when they hit about 30% mana while we’re engaged, and have even been known to order them to do it over Vent (I’m co-RL). Their success or failure directly impacts our own, and I want them to have every resource available to succeed.
September 29th, 2008
I don’t raid often enough with warlocks, so when I do end up with one its safe to say that Im twitching by the end of the raid because I keep thinking something is sneaking up on us. After all, the fights over and suddenly someones health meter takes a nose dive .. ack .. patrol .. no wait it’s just a lock asking for attention
Now days the 1st thing I do is whisper them, “Im a tree and hot’s are cheap so Ill throw you one during fights when I can” … I have been very fortunate, most of the locks I deal with don’t abuse me to much for out of combat heals. They sit down and take a drink and eat like the rest of us.
Oh yeah, that health meter dropping like a rock really was a pat the last time
September 29th, 2008
A lot of locks will lifetap after a pull and THEN proceed to eat and drink, just because it’s faster to fill half a health abr and half a mana bar than a full mana bar.
Sometimes y’just gotta give ‘em a second
Of course, if they demand the heal, all bets are off.
September 29th, 2008
I have both a 70 warlock and 70 holy priest. As a warlock, I never ask for heals. In fact, I go out of my way to tell them that “My health will drop because I’m lifetapping. Dont freak out. Save your mana for the tank.” When a healer does throw a heal on me, it’s just a nice bonus.
When I’m on my priest, I WILL throw a heal on the warlock when we’re out of combat and ONLY if my mana is at or near full. If it’s not a crazy fight, they may get a Renew. Hey I’ve been there - I know how nice it is to get one. It’s almost always appreciated, and I usually get a “ty” for my troubles.
Of all the classes that I cringe to see join my group, warlocks are never the ones. In my server its the class that starts with an “H” and rhymes with “unter”. You just want to cry when you see someone whine about “damn mobs breaking traps early”, and then look at Recount to see that he broke CC more times than the tank.
September 29th, 2008
There are two, very different, types of warlocks.
1 is the type that I raid with.
2 is the type that I pvp against.
I love the 1 and abhor the 2. As players, most of the locks I’ve met are reliable and good to have around. In the battlegrounds, warlocks are my rogues.
~V
September 29th, 2008
Points for life-tapping right after the last mob dies, rude gestures for life-tapping just before the pull.
September 29th, 2008
Gasp! I am not /moody/. *hrmph*
Loved the entry, truly. I also dislike most warlocks. I know, it’s almost like self-loathing, but not - because I’m way more awesome. The one PUG (yes, one) that I’ve run with another Warlock involved him telling me I should be using Hellfire. I should be using Lifetap. I should be doing this, or doing that. Things that eventually caused our lovely Resto Druid healer to tell him “I’m not healing you anymore”.
You know what I SHOULD be doing as a Warlock? Dealing out pain. Dealing out pain and NEVER needing the attention of the Priest. I’m a Destruction specced warlock, with some tasty treats picked up in Demonology (when Blue is your tank most of the time, you want him to be good at it). My Lifetap is (nearly) worthless, with the sole exception of situations where I need “just one more” good spell to help end things. If I can sit down and drink with the Healery types, bet your bottom I’m going to.
I hate Shadow Priests, though. Priests, who think they can be warlocks! The nerve.
More accurately, I hate priests who think they can be Shadow Priests, particularly when they are in the upper 30’s, in a Battleground. When I’m standing there on my paladin, and I’m taking on a Shaman and a Rogue (it’s a given I’m GOING to die. Shaman = wonderful foes)… You’re going to start shooting something weak and shadowy at them? Do you REALLY think you can win this one? Hey, I have an idea! They are ignoring your clothy rear end, how about you toss a couple heals my way, while I smite them with some mighty Retribution, which already has the rogue down to 10% health!
No? Okay, fine. But I’m not going to the graveyard until I watch them smear your “I wanna be dark and shadowy” arse all over the blacksmith wall.
September 29th, 2008
never met a warlock I liked.
My favorite is when they life tap just before they know they are about to take damage. Bloodboil and Najentus are good examples. Seriously…W T F.
I think I just quit healing warlocks altogether at that point. In fact I think if I looked at my wws parses I’m not sure I would see a heal land on a warlock. Even my CoH’s avoid now I think.
September 29th, 2008
Sadly, I rather like warlocks — and so does the perky priest, at least in character. Well, other than the ones that promise her that they’ll remove her soul from her body for health. Or that one that delighted in stuffing her soul inside a little purple orb and then tossing it carelessly around while Csilla looked on in dismay.
… maybe I was wrong. The perky priest doesn’t like warlocks too much.
That said, I am a warlock-conscious priest who specifically removes warlocks out from my UI so that I can watch their mana bars and throw up a Renew when they look low. It’s not uncommon for me to call out one name and invite them to start Lifetapping; they always seem to miss the invitation despite having both Renew and Power Word: Shield on them (to prevent losing so much health that a single AoE blow knocks them out. We’ve had a warlock do that a lot). In fact, I go out of my way to let new warlocks to raids know that they’ll get Renews because they really don’t expect it. As a Holy human priestess with Spirit of Redemption and stacked with Spirit-y goodness, I’m not running out of mana any time soon!
This priest loves me some warlocks!
September 29th, 2008
The only warlocks that bug me when instancing (they’d better not do it in a raid!) are those who use life tap like like a mage would evocate. They pretty much life tap themselves to death and get angry that they aren’t healed in 3 seconds. Throwing a renew out is reasonable, expecting a 10k heal is out of the question.
Also, I wish frisbee procked from life tap.
The greatest moment ever was when a lock died unexpectedly on Prince… he life tapped at 1 hp. Shadow priests and locks killing themselves on Prince, ftw!
September 30th, 2008
I’ve met Bad Warlocks and Bad Hunters, plenty of them. But just as many Good ones (although I’ve had to explain HoT = Life Tap) to far too many Kara-level locks) are out there too. Neither of those classes is the one which I’m thoroughly prejudiced against. That I reserve for paladins.
Like all classes, there are Good Paladins, whom I Keep Around, and Bad Paladins whom I Shun Vigorously. But the ratio of Good to Bad in paladins seems depressing. Crusader aura while tanking a dungeon, tagging a mob I’ve just hit with a DoT… my favorite Bad Paladin was the tank who bubbled and ran every time a DPS died, because “I don’t want to wipe–plate costs so much to repair!” Needless to say, he was frustrated at how often we wiped.
I’ll tolerate any amount of ignorance, unless it’s willful. Not knowing things is fine; I’ll help out (like the 63 rouge who didn’t know what the blue balls were). But if it takes three /p and two /w to get you to change to Ret Aura because you’re tanking five mobs at once, not using Consecrate, and not switching targets (the first heal dropped four mobs on the very surprised healer), I’m going to consider looking for another tank.
I’m all for alternate specs, and I don’t laugh at ret pallies. Until they grab a secondary-threat target and tank it all by themselves, then whine at the tree for a rezzing. I’ve had paladins refuse to give me Kings until I explain (twice) that +spirit gives me +heal and +MP5; put Wisdom on a tanking druid (repeatedly); I even saw Might on an Imp once.
Willful idiocy and selfish thoughtlessness I will not tolerate. Anything else we can work on. Paladins have an uphill struggle to prove to me they’re worth working with. I’ve never played Alliance; is this a Blood Elf Thing? (I’ve noticed that belves are more likely to be Bad Players than other Horde races, generally.) Maybe Shaman have the same problem among the blue-flaggers?
September 30th, 2008
I have only had one bad Lock experience and that was a lock that insisted healing gear was good for him and he wanted to roll on it against me. He said it helped with his healthstones and healing his pet. Seriously.
As for Locks life tapping…I tell them to life tap and toss a renew on them….even out of combat. Now if I do not have mana I sit and drink and that is that, but if I have mana I’d rather keep moving if possible instead of waiting for the lock to get mana/health back up.
September 30th, 2008
My main is a priest and i totally dont mind when a lock taps… with their talent that gives them 25% healing or what not, 1 greater heal hits for like 9k or crits for 12k…. so thats easy enough. for 800 mana out of my 11k unbuffed thats fine.
I hate rogues… I have one myself… it was my only 60… and my first 70.
Why, because at the current point they are practically useless. Sap is crap, they are melee so they take a heap of dmg from practically anything, their neiche weapon is the dagger and nobody uses them and on a fight like Brut, they pretty much always loose to locks and mages on DPS… Which is what they are supposed to do because they provide nothing else.
At least a mage provides Int. A lock gives Curse of Reck and Elements as well as a +shadow dmg buff for other locks/shadow priests, Shammies give totems and BL, Druids give a buff when in their forms, Warriors have shouts, Hunters even have MD and they are at range, Ret pallies give +3% dmg to entire raid and keep blessings up… and I could continue but im just babbling now…
At least in Wrath, Rogues have an MD which increases dmg…
September 30th, 2008
[...] over at The Egotistical Priest hates Warlocks. Really, I don’t find this to be that big a deal - Priests often strike me as being our [...]
September 30th, 2008
You’re all talking about destruction locks, otherwise known as shadow mages, they not even proper locks anyway.
Life tap? Why would I do that, I have this little imp named mana battery running along beside me, I’ll tap him instead.
Oh and on the rare occasions when mana battery is low, and I have to life tap, don’t bother with the heals, you know my drain life gets +4% for every DoT I’ve dropped on that target, and I’ve dropped a lot of DoTs so I’ll life tap and then suck the life back and still do damage at the same time.
These wannabe mages giving us locks a bad name, why didn’t they just roll mage in the first place?
September 30th, 2008
Oh thats a tough one, there are things that every class does that I hate, I’m really unfond of bad hunters and bad tanks of any flavor. I could make a list but the bigest peeves are the hunter who grabs aggro, gets the mob up in his grill and rather than trapping it, feigns death, while standing next to me, and the tanks who don’t get aggro on/don’t pay attention to all their mobs, and don’t come get the lose ones, which again have come to see me. I’m your tree, I don’t have an easily accessible aggro dump, somebody has to come over here and get it off me before I die and all of you come with me. The list could go on…
That said, I love the lock I run w/ regularly who, after life tapping, bandages themself, -even in combat- I have gone to throw a HoT on my lock, thinking ‘when did you take damage?’ to find him in the middle of self bandaging. It’s enough to warm this trees wooden heart, ditto for hunters who give me a trap to stand in if they aren’t doing specific CC, that cat druid who will back out and heal herself an other melee dps on AoE heavy fights, that rogue who likes to avoidance tank mobs trying to kill me, that pally tank who throws me a safety bubble on pulls gone wild while he gathers everything back up. I love you guys.
That lock who helfired himself to death while I was busy trying to keep both you and the real tank alive? You’re running back to your body. I might need this rez for somebody important in the next 20 minutes.
September 30th, 2008
I will lifetap during a fight when I suddenly find myself reduced to using my wand to keep attacking. Never when out of combat though, I will cheerfully eat and drink like every body else.
October 1st, 2008
You hate us Warlocks? C’mon think logically; we are the shadowy reflection of Priests and Mages, you should love us as it keeps your position in the Light so clear. Without us to demonstrate corruption, you would be tempted to walk that path.
I play a Warlock regularly and I love it. I also love ANY healer who will top me up with health after a pull, or during a long fight. I don’t expect it, but it makes a hug difference.
Understand that as a Warlock one of my jobs is to watch the healer. The Mage is there to pure DPS and has sweet stuff all to offer a healer apart from sheep and a bit of freezing. A Warlock brings a diversity of Fears, pets and pure damage soak that can really help the squishy healers. Warlocks can take hits harder than most Priests, and I often keep an eye on the healer and pick-up mobs that target them. Sometimes its not worth the Tank’s attention.
eg. Brewfest Boss. Those ads are easy to kill, and the Tank should not bother. The DPS should assign one and maybe a back-up to deal with them, and destroy them. Burn them.
I also find it funny that you dislike a class that walks in the Shadow path. The SPriests and Warlock have a wonderful synergy together. Extra mana vulnerability, with a Curse of Elements, and mana return is a combo for happy dps. Add a Boomkin buff or a Mage and you’re looking at good times
“Warlocks do tend to be the most insufferable players” - Go watch a bad Hunter for 30 minutes and tell me that again. Warlocks might be easy to do badly, we are very hard to do well. The ones that are considered OP are the ones who have mastered the class.
Given how much Fear-Nurfing has occurred, and how much is coming in Wrath; Warlocks will not be the problem they were 2 years ago. Everyone should get past the Fear-Nurf-Bat and take a look at stuns and silences. Including the Priests.
October 1st, 2008
[...] hates Warlocks. Good. Did you know that Hannalore at Egotistical “hates” Warlocks; but in a good way imho. She hates us soul drinkers because we are selfish, evil, and a bit emo. [...]
October 3rd, 2008
[...] Amber wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI hate warlocks. No really. Maybe I’m racist, or classist, or something. I just hate them. Inevitably they’re stuffy and irritable, cranky and all around moody. They don’t have anything to offer a group except killing things faster, and even their pets are just kind of in the way. At least a rogue has practical abilities, and a hunter can do… stuff. I guess. At least most hunters aren’t blatantly suicidal. Alright alright, the caveat. Not ALL warlocks are useless suicidal emokids. The mistress of my own house is quite regal and intelligent and quite able to handle herself. But she’s moody too, so I guess there’s that. But most of them are just terribad. We’re out there fighting fighting fighting, the rogue, mage, and warlock are arguing over the dps meter, and everything’s dead. Well before I sit down to drink, I’d like to pick up the stuff off the corpses. Y’know, it’s mine, [...] [...]
October 3rd, 2008
You hate Warlocks? Hmmmm, on the surface, that would seem logical, since we are the antithesis of you Priestly types, lurking in the shadows, wrapped in our delicious darkness, just waiting to toss some DOT’s on an unsuspecting MOB. But is it hate?
Let’s look a little closer. I’ve heard Warlocks described as the WoW equivalent of a Vampire. I tend to agree. We have spells that can suck the life out of our enemies. Most of our spells either drain or corrupt our targets, and the Bliz literature all claim we draw our power from darkness. But is it hate really Hanners? Maybe there’s something more at work here. Who can deny the draw that darkness has on people, especially innocent Priestesses? I think you secretly love Warlocks. We make things sick then dead, you excel at healing things. It’s the old ‘Opposites attract’ theory.
I personally do not use Life Tap. That’s not to say I won’t find it useful at some point, but to date, I have not needed it. I have used Hellfire, but only when I knew the MOBs would die much sooner than me, or when I knew I was going to die and at least wanted to take a few of them with me. And yeah, ok, there is a bit of a rush when you set yourself ablaze. The point is, I don’t have a healer following me around. Anyone (besides the tank) that’s constantly calling on the healer to heal them is doing something wrong, or the run is going at a frenzied pace. Gotta have time for the healer to mana up every now and then.
Yeah, you had the caveat, but honestly, ‘bad’ doesn’t follow one class. There is bad everywhere. I will say I think Warlocks and Rogues are some of the most difficult classes to play, IMO. But if you learn how to play them, they can be serious damage dealers.
‘Make that half-dressed hoofed harlot heal you’
Indeed. Trust me when I say, she means nothing to us. She’s just another tool in our dark bag of tricks. She could never take your place.
That being said, we all love our healers. They are truly the life blood of a group, along with the tank.
As far as our being ‘fixed’. Ummm, no thanks. Leave our evil alone Hanners.
I really enjoy reading your stuff. Even being a Warlock, and not feeling much love here, I laughed my ass off.
Keep up the good work.
October 7th, 2008
love love love warlocks.
A lock with a priest is a never ending source of constant damage. Can we say fast questing? Mucho money from dailies! Not to mention the ones I raid with are always looking out for me, and their ability to steal aggro at will only works in my favor, when a big bad monster wants to squish me.
Did I say I love to play with locks? I only mean good locks. =). Ones who tap after the fight and don’t expect more than a renew.